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A WORD FROM YOUR PASTOR

For me, one of the most profound passages of Scripture is one that we are reminded of each year during Holy Week and Easter: Luke 23:33-34…and they came to the place called The Skull, there they crucified Him …But Jesus was saying, “Father, forgive them for they do not know what they are doing”… Forgive them – That the Son of God would think of those who had just carried out His death sentence - that He would pray for their forgiveness --- for yours --- for mine. What wondrous love is this, Oh my soul. If the message of the cross is about anything beloved, it is about forgiveness. Sometimes I wonder if we forget that. We are so used to hearing the “end” of the story. Could it be that perhaps the glory and victory of the resurrection eclipses the dreadful reason He had to die in the first place – WE ALL NEED FORGIVENESS! We must not rush to embrace the grace and abundant and eternal life God offers us in Christ without also recognizing the cost and sacrifice that purchased it. We must not just revel in the joy of faith without remembering the distance God reached to redeem us. “Surely the arm of the LORD is not too short to save, nor his ear too dull to hear. But your iniquities have separated you from your God; your sins have hidden his face from you, so that he will not hear. For your hands are stained with blood, your fingers with guilt. Your lips have spoken lies, and your tongue mutters wicked things.” But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us. The cross invites us to do two things: 1) to accept the grace and forgiveness of God for our own sin and 2) to in turn be graceful and forgiving toward others who may have wronged us or hurt us. Jesus is both our redeemer and our example. The art of accepting and granting forgiveness is a spiritual grace all Christians should nurture and develop in their lives. But it can be difficult and does take practice. One writer offered these suggestions for nurturing a forgiving spirit: 1) Begin by considering your injury in comparison to Christ's suffering. Have you really been seriously wronged at all? Sometimes the hurt we feel has less to do with someone else and more to do with ourselves and our own relationship with the Lord. 2) Recall the many kind deeds that have been shown to you, perhaps even by the person who has harmed you. 3) List the benefits you have received from the Lord. 4) Thank the Lord for blessing you with His grace and forgiveness each day. 5) Make an honest effort to pray for those who may have injured or wronged you. 6) Go even further by looking for an opportunity to help them. 7) If the offense is especially hard to forget, try to help erase its memory by focusing on gracious and generous thoughts. 8) Finally, repeat slowly and thoughtfully that phrase from the Lord's Prayer, "Forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors." Corrie Ten Boom once told of not being able to forget a wrong that had been done to her. She had forgiven the person, but she kept rehashing the incident and so couldn't sleep. Finally Corrie cried out to God for help in putting the problem to rest. "His help came in the form of a kindly Lutheran pastor," Corrie wrote, "to whom I confessed my failure after two sleepless weeks." "Up in the church tower," he said, nodding out the window, "is a bell which is rung by pulling on a rope. But after the sexton lets go of the rope, the bell keeps on swinging. First ding, then dong. Slower and slower until there's a final dong and it stops. I believe the same thing is true of forgiveness. When we forgive, we take our hand off the rope. But if we've been tugging at our grievances for a long time, we mustn't be surprised if the old angry thoughts keep coming for a while. They're just the ding-dongs of the old bell slowing down." "And so it proved to be. There were a few more midnight reverberations, a couple of dings when the subject came up in my conversations, but the force -- which was my willingness in the matter -- had gone out of them. They came less and less often and at the last stopped altogether: We can trust God not only above our emotions, but also above our thoughts." There was a song in a Youth Musical that the youth group performed years ago at Park Place Church of God in Anderson, Indiana. The song was titled “Let Your First Thought be Love” I don’t remember all the words but I do remember the first verse and the chorus. “Somehow someone has hurt you again. They’ve done things and said things you don’t understand – you just don’t understand. It’s easy to think of your pride – it’s easy to get angry inside. . . .But let your first thought – let your very first thought be love. Let your first thought – let your very first thought be love – be love – Let it be love. . . A couple married for 15 years began having more than usual disagreements. They wanted to make their marriage work and agreed on an idea the wife had. For one month they planned to drop a slip in a "Fault" box. The boxes would provide a place to let the other know about daily irritations. The wife was diligent in her efforts and approach: "leaving the jelly top off the jar," "wet towels on the shower floor," "dirty socks not in hamper," on and on until the end of the month. After dinner, at the end of the month, they exchanged boxes. The husband reflected on what he had done wrong. Then the wife opened her box and began reading. They were all the same, the message on each slip was, "I love you!" You might say that the husband didn’t play fair. ---You might say that about Jesus too. …and they came to the place called The Skull, there they crucified Him …But Jesus was saying, “Father, forgive them for they do not know what they are doing”… May this Lenten Season lead us all to a Blessed, Redemptive Easter morning Beloved Pastor Marc